Rise of the Superweeds

One of the arguments against GMOs has been that they caused the evolution of so-called “superweeds”, an epidemic that apparently has the world headed for a crisis. Some claim that we will soon be unable to sustain our modern agriculture techniques, and GMOs are at fault.

Fortunately, the reality is quite different. Superweeds are indeed a problem, and their evolution is causing significant problems for farmers. However, we do have options to control them, and emerging technology is going to help us out.

Superweeds – What Are They?

Superweeds really aren’t that super. They aren’t bigger, faster growing, or more competitive than “normal” weeds. All a superweed actually is is a weed that is resistant to a certain type of control. Becoming resistant to Roundup (glyphosate) doesn’t automatically make a weed more competitive, it just makes it more difficult for us to control them. It eliminates one of the tools we have in our toolbox.

Palmer amaranth is one of the most prolific glyphosate resistant weeds in the US, producing up to a million seeds per plant. (Superior Ag Resources photo/Tom Sinnot)

A common misconception is that superweeds are only resistant to glyphosate, but that is actually not accurate. Weeds have been evolving resistance to many kinds of control for as long as agriculture has been around. In fact, in India, farmers used to hand weed barnyard grass out of rice. Barnyard grass was very similar in appearance to rice, but it had a distinctive red stem. As farmers removed those weeds year after year, a different strain of barnyard grass with a green stem became more prevalent. Eventually, farmers could no longer tell the difference between barnyard grass and rice; they had selected for green stems (read more here). Essentially, you could call that particular strain of barnyard grass a superweed. 

What Causes Superweeds to Develop?

Like the example of the red-stemmed barnyard grass, evolution of resistance to glyphosate and other chemicals is really rather simple. Continuous application of the same chemistry to the same fields year after year will allow that one weed with natural resistance to proliferate. One year, there’s one of them. That weed produces dozens or – believe it or not – millions of offspring. In year two, depending on how many germinate, survive and reproduce, an exponential increase in resistant populations begins.

All that particular weed has is a mutation that allows it to survive the chemical. Lentil harvestSometimes, it can only survive a lower rate, which is why proper application rates are
so important. As that weed begins to spread, it finds its way into other fields and other farms. Combines do a great job of blasting weed seeds hundreds of feet through the air, and with the right wind, weed seeds can even be blown into adjacent fields.

Whose Fault Is It?

Are farmers to blame for this? In a word, yes. We are responsible for understanding the chemicals we apply on our own fields. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to throw myself and my colleagues under a bus here. But there have been many farmers that simply grew Roundup Ready crops over and over for over a decade – applying incredible selection pressure to their weeds. Could pesticide companies do more to educate farmers on this subject? Yes, but they have vastly improved their education efforts. A fantastic example is Bayer Crop Science’s Mix It Up campaign, which informs farmers how their products can improve resistance management (read more here). I think the key going forward is that assigning blame gets us nowhere. Let’s instead focus on solutions.

When Roundup was first released, it was a novel herbicide that was considered to have “Low” susceptibility to resistance. Because of its mode of action, weeds would have to develop a complex resistance mechanism. Sadly, this assumption led to an overapplication of glyphosate, much of it at rates too low to be totally effective, and has thereby resulted in the loss of one of the great inventions of the modern age to many regions.

How Do GMOs Fit In?

The introduction of Roundup Ready crops in the 1990’s caused a surge in the use of glyphosate. It was cheap, safe, very effective on weeds and easy to apply. Despite what has been coming out in the media about glyphosate lately (read more here), it is actually a very safe product with no known health effects in humans or animals. It was a breakthrough in agriculture, one of the greatest of our time. It is because of this that its overuse was simply inevitable.

Nikon J1 205
A young GM canola crop with developing weed competition.

It is, however, important to distinguish that although Roundup Ready crops contributed to the overuse of glyphosate, they did not cause resistance themselves. Glyphosate is not the only product with resistance problems. Other chemical groups also have issues, such as sulfonylureas, imidazolinones, PPO inhibitors, plant growth regulators and so on have all led to the proliferation of their own resistant weeds. None of these products are tied to glyphosate resistant crops. In fact, even insects and plant diseases have evolved pesticide resistance. In Europe, for example, flea beetles have become resistant to pyrethroid insecticides. Canada thistle became a problem in the prairies largely because of cultivation, which allowed their roots to be spread all over the fields.

Any type of pest control can and will cause pest resistance if the selection pressure is high enough. Unfortunately for RR crops in the United States, the selection pressure was simply too high.

What Are We Doing About It?

Every problem has a solution, and superweeds are no different. The way to fix this problem is actually pretty simple – rotation. Using a variety of crops combined with a variety of chemicals prevents weeds from building resistance. Take that Roundup-resistant weed and hit it with something else. Maybe a different chemical, maybe a little bit of strategic tillage, maybe even just a more competitive crop.

There are some incredibly exciting developments in the world of crop protection. RNA interference technology may just be the new frontier in weed management. Palmer amaranth, a particularly problematic weed in the US, resists glyphosate by producing extra copies of EPSPS, an enzyme required for amino acid synthesis that glyphosate binds to and prevents growth, eventually causing death. It overcomes the glyphosate application by simply producing so many copies of EPSPS enzyme that it overwhelms the glyphosate molecules. To stop this from happening, RNAi prevents the production of the EPSPS enzyme. With less of it produced, glyphosate is once again effective (read more here and here).

While RNAi is very new and is probably years away from production, it is promising to see innovations like this on the horizon. In Australia, where weed resistance is a major problem, some farmers are using the Harrington Seed Destructor to destroy weeds as they leave the back of the combine, which is proving to be incredible effective. Robotic weed destroyers are prototypes today, but could be a game changer in the near future. But in the meantime, we must protect what we have. Careful rotations and proper application techniques will go far to secure the usefulness of the chemicals we have for the foreseeable future.

Superweeds are nothing new. Weeds always have and always will evolve survival mechanisms against our strategies to control them. GMOs are not the culprit here; a lack of discipline in the use of our most valuable chemistries is the reason we are having the problems we are having. Panic by local governments and knee-jerk reactions will not help us deal with weed resistance. Education, research and new ideas are what we need to combat this problem. Weeds have always been one of farmers’ greatest challenges, and we will have to continue to be innovative and determined to stay ahead of them.

Time for a Change




Farming Constantly Changes – And That’s A Good Thing










spring wheat

Guest Post: Why I’m Through with Organic Farming

A great article on the fallacy of organic farming, and a great read. There are a lot of things to ponder in this post.

Random Rationality


Why I’m Through with Organic Farming

by Mike Bendzela of Dow Farm Enterprise

It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you;

you are defiled by…

View original post 3,319 more words

A Year In The Life Of A Farmer















Harvest 118




Agriculture Proud

Janice Person – A Colorful Adventure

Prairie Californian

LipStick & Tractors

Daddy’s Tractor

Rural Route 2


Harvest – What is it?

Harvest time on the farm is nothing if not busy. We are going full out, trying to get this massive crop in with as little quality damage as possible. And it is a big crop. Bigger than Dad has ever seen. This, while wonderful, does create challenges logistically. Running our large combines to capacity requires good operators and a good support crew. The grain cart, semi trucks and augers must not have problems, and keeping everybody alert all day is a challenge all in itself.

I know some people that run their equipment through most of the night. Personally, I don’t know how to do that. Keeping our two combines running at capacity throughout the day is a challenge all in itself, and shorting yourself on sleep can be a dangerous practice, both for equipment and for people.

I thought I would give you a rundown of what exactly a typical harvest day is on a Saskatchewan farm. If you’ve never been on a farm, you may not even know what a “combine” is!

1) We get up early in the morning, around sunrise, and go to the combines to get them ready for the day. There are a lot of moving parts on these machines that require regular lubrication (greasing). While this is not required every day, it can take a significant amount of time in the morning to do. While we are greasing, we fuel the machines up and check them over. Some preventative maintenance can save you big delays during the prime part of the day.

Early mornings can be very pretty!

2) We fire up the machines and start harvesting. The time for this can vary. Most mornings, we cannot start until at least 9:00 am. Heavy dews and cloudy mornings can make for a later start than that. This is referred to as “tough”. The plants are too wet to run through the combine, so we must wait for them to dry down. The later in the year harvest gets, the later in the day we can start. For example, in August we can start at 8:00 am most mornings, but by October we usually don’t get started until 11:00 am. This can really prolong harvest.

Lots of work to do to get ready to go.

3) Once the combines are rolling, it is the grain cart’s job to keep them rolling by emptying them on the go. the cart runs from combine to combine to truck all day long. Meanwhile, the semis are hauling grain to our binyards or to the elevators nearby. If neither is available, we store the grain in bags, short-term. We try and run steady until supper time, when we usually take a break. My wife and/or my mom usually prepare supper for everyone, which provides a much-needed rest.

The grain cart with our Case IH Quadtrack tractor. With this unit, speed is not a problem in even the roughest fields.

4) Re-energized from supper, and often switching operators, we start again, running until we are too tired or it gets too tough to go. In some crops, like peas, which are viny and tough to pick up off the ground, we can be finished at 8:00 pm. In crops like canola or cereals, we can sometimes go as late as we want. In any case, we are usually done by 10-11:00 pm.

Good lights are oh-so-important!

A combine is a complicated machine. Suffice to say, it threshes and separates grain from straw. The combines we run, John Deere 9870’s, are 2008 models. In the above picture, we are combining durum, which was yielding 72 bushels/acre, a record for this farm (a bushel is unit of measurement for the yield of a crop; there are 60 pounds to a single bushel of wheat). These machines, when set right and operated properly, were processing 900 bushels/hour. This is more than combines used to do in a day!

This is hardly a thorough explanation, but it should give you an idea of what we do. It is a very stressful operation, often dirty and exhausting; but it is also exciting. Breakdowns are the worst part of harvest, which are inevitable. Sometimes they are minor and are fixed within minutes. However, sometimes you can be shut down for an entire day, which can be infuriating, especially if rain is on the way.

You may hear of “Big Ag” and “factory farms” that care nothing for their land or the consumer. The reality could not be more different. On this farm, we are a family operation with some outside employees. We all care about this land and the crops we grow. It is what we do; it is our life. Yes, our farm is a larger one, and yes we have millions of dollars of equipment out in the fields. But that does not change who we are as farmers and just how exciting this time of the year is. We grow quality food for a hungry planet, and it is a lot of fun to harvest it. And above all else, safety is our main concern. This is a dangerous time of the year, and no amount of success in farming is worth severe injuries. Sleep is vital!

I encourage anyone who wonders what real farming is like to visit one. Learn where your food comes from, from the people who grow it. I’d be happy to show you around!

Follow Your Dreams

Have you ever had a dream?

I don’t mean a dream as in the one you see in your sleep and soon forget. I mean something that inspired you, or moved you, or gave you a goal to strive for. Perhaps it was to build something, invent something; whether just a childhood Lego creation or a skyscraper. Maybe it was to fly a plane, or to go to space, or to find the cure for Alzheimer’s. 

Did you pursue it? Did you make it a part of your life? Or did you let it fall away, accepting that it was impossible or impractical? Sometimes life hits you harder than you can withstand, and your dream falls away from your consciousness. 

My dream is something I do every day. My dream is growth.

The excitement I feel each and every spring is because once again I have an opportunity to continue my dream. Planting fragile seeds into a harsh, dangerous and unforgiving soil, full of parasites and predators, with little more than hope to work with, is a major risk. Mother Nature doesn’t have to be kind. She can be a bitch. But somehow, I still go out and risk my future every spring on the hope that maybe, just maybe, she will be generous. 

Farming is more than just laying seeds on the ground and hoping that they will grow. Growing the crops is only one part of the dream of growth. I also dream of growing the farm, seeding more acres and having more crops to discover and learn about. Growing the business is the other half of my dream. Creating a secure operation with money to spare to invest in new opportunities and new ventures is what I dream of every day. Sometimes, Mother Nature smites these dreams with a punishing torrent of rain, or hail, or a crushing frost, or a devastating drought. Yet I push on, because this business, this life, is the dream all we farmers endeavour for. Some have no dream of expansion, while others want to farm the world. But as long as we can survive, as long as we can go into the next year and plant another crop, our dreams continue.

Some people may respond with a callous “so what? Farmers have it easy. They are born into their dreams, I have to search for mine!” True enough, maybe. Let me share my experience with you on this.

I graduated high school in June of 2006. At that time, farming was not my intention. In this part of the world, farming was tough- very tough. We had had a rough go for the last few years: 2003 was a drought, 2004 was a devastating early frost, and prices were so low in those years  that despite a good crop in 2005, we still lost money. The world had lots of food, and farmers were largely ignored, if not forgotten. I could not foresee how I could ever make a living farming. So I considered other options, such as engineering, but ended up going into agriculture with the intention of becoming a veterinarian. I don’t know to this day what my father thought of this. I do know he was close to calling it quits after 2005. But then something happened- something fundamentally changed in the world of agriculture, something that had not happened in 30 years.

The world ran out of grain. Between farmers leaving the industry, a couple years of lower production and the advent of using grains for fuel, stocks had suddenly become low. In late 2007, prices exploded for all types of commodities, creating unprecedented returns. Suddenly, agriculture was front page news on business magazines and talked about on major news stations on television. Farmers found themselves in the spotlight. It was in late 2006 to early 2007 that I decided not to become a vet and to farm instead. And that has been my course ever since. It hasn’t been easy. Indeed, if you were to read some of my blog posts from spring you would see that even with high prices, 2010-2011 were tough years for us. But we press on, pushing to become better at what we do, to grow our business and become more sustainable. Life is like a boxing match against an unbeatable opponent; at some point, you will lose the fight. But you can give it one hell of a fight before you go down. Persistence and ambition, the drive to reach your dreams, no matter how impossible they may seem, is the way I have chosen to live my life.

Maybe this is all too hardcore, talking about drive and ambition and dreams. This is a part of who I am, and how I think, and it will always be a part of my blog. I think within all of us is the power to do anything. It is us who limit ourselves. Perhaps I limit myself too, sometimes, putting too much focus on the farm and missing other opportunities. I don’t know what path life has laid out for me. All I know is that if I work hard and think things through carefully, opportunities will come. I feel that farming is a great analogy to anyone struggling to accomplish their dreams, because sometimes things happen that are out of your control. Sometimes, simple bad luck can knock you on your face. But you have to get up and keep going. 

My dream is growth. Growth of my crops, my business, and my relationships with the ones I hold most dear. What is yours? And, are you fighting for it?